Tired of being accused of illegal drug use simply because I have allergies and heartburn

I’m wide awake and feeling great and ready to rant. Wait, those things don’t all go together. So if you’ll permit me, there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest so I can go on and have that great day I’m just dying to have. And actually, all of my complaints today are tied around one common theme: I’m tired of being accused of being an illegal drug user simply because I have allergies and acid reflux.

Sound absurd? Well, it is. Eye allergies are no fun. I’ve developed them just in the past few years, and the only solution I’ve found is to put allergy eye drops in my eyes about once every four hours. That means I’ve got to carry the bottle of eye drops with me all day when I’m out and about, and since I’d have to remove my contact lenses in order to use the drops, I’ve instead mostly given up on contacts and gone back to wearing glasses. I used to sneak off around the corner when using the eye drops in public, but these days I just don’t care. After all, who sneaks off to use legal eye drops for legitimate eye allergies? Just makes you look like you have something to hide.

The problem, however, surfaced last month when one of the bands I was interviewing for the magazine invited me to come to their performance at a local club in Hollywood. After security confirmed that my name was on the artist’s guest list, they patted me down and proceeded to confiscate…my eye drops? I guess it turns out this particular club was having a problem with people lacing eye drops with illegal drugs for use inside the club. That’s sad in a number of ways, but you see I have actual eye allergies, so I’ll be moving along into the club now. Except no, they weren’t going to let me take them inside the club under any circumstances. Instead they insisted that I place them in a bin full of other bottles of eye drops they’d confiscated, and told me I could reclaim them on the way out.

If not for the fact that it was professionally necessary for me to be there, I’d have turned around and gone home with then and there out of disgust, but for the sake of my feature story I surrendered my eye drops and went inside, humiliated. Of course the club turned out to be full of smoke machines, and the patio full of cigarette smoke, so I needed my eye drops more than ever, but no dice. Once I’d seen enough of the band’s performance to make it work for my story, I bolted. On the way out I went back to reclaim my eye drops, found the bottle that looked like mine, used them immediately out of necessity, and headed home. It wasn’t until later that night that I it occurred to me that the eye drops I’d pulled back out of that bin might not have been mine after all, and that as a result of the club’s asinine policies and procedures, I might have unintentionally used laced eye drops my way out of the club. Fearful that that just might have been the case, I threw the eye drops away the next morning and headed back to the store to buy another eight dollar bottle of drops. I can only hope that my work never requires me to set foot in that same club again, because I never will.

But my eyes aren’t the only allergies I have to deal with. When I’m in Los Angeles I don’t seem to have any nasal allergies at all, but when I’m back in Florida I can’t get through the day without some kind of nasal allergy relief. Growing up it was a prescription nasal inhaler, which I gladly gave up when I moved to LA, but for my times back in Florida I need some modicum of relief and that comes in the form of the not-fully-effective but just-effective-enough Claritin. I went to buy a box the other day, and sure enough, I had to go to the pharmacy counter to get it. I had to show my drivers license, sign something, all this hoopla as if I were buying a new house, and in reality all I was doing was trying to purchase a five-pill box of allergy medication. I know full well why the government has placed these restrictions on Claritin (or anything containing pseudoephedrine), but I still feel like a criminal for needing to use it. What’s worse is that I’ve seen first-hand that these policies don’t work, as early this year I was in line behind a group of several women who were each buying the maximum amount of pseudoephedrine legally allowed, and it was painfully obvious why they were doing so (the cashier even commented about it after they’d left). But simply by bringing a whole gaggle of family and friends, these illegal drug users were easily circumventing a system that treats me like a criminal for not wanting to sneeze so often. What would the term of the day be for that? Epic Fail? And of course I only bought five pills because I wanted to make sure they were actually going to work before I bought a larger one, which means that in few days I’ll have to go back and buy a larger box; will they even allow me to purchase another box so soon? Since when do we have to worry about this kind of thing?

The absolute worst of it, however, comes from the fact that I happen to have life-long acid reflux thanks to a disorder that runs in the family. I’ve been taking Prilosec on doctor’s orders for twelve years now, every morning and every night, and it’s vital enough that if I were down to my last dollar and had to choose between Prilosec and food, I’d take the Prilosec. No sympathy for me, though. I take the pills and I’m fine. I used to take the prescription form, but when started my own company and had to give up my health insurance, I found that the over the counter version is much cheaper the full prescription price and works just as well if you take it at the equivalent dosage.

The problem with that, though, comes from the fact that I have to purchase it frequently in large doses (the largest box only lasts me ten days), and that’s become increasingly difficult to do over the past year. Why? Because it starts with the letter “P” believe it or not. Chain stores are apparently drilling the fact that sales of pseudoephedrine are restricted into the brains of their cashiers quite thoroughly, which after all is government-mandated and not the stores’ or cashiers’ fault. But what is their fault is that very few cashiers seem to be able to remember which “P” drug is restricted, which means that believe it or not, more than half the time I try to buy multiple boxes of Prilosec in one shot, I’m confronted by a cashier who’s confused “Prilosec” for “pseudoephedrine” and insists I can only buy one box at a time. The number of times I’ve had to ask for the manager just so I can buy my heartburn medication without being accused of being a meth addict is just astounding. It’s frustrating and (again that word) humiliating enough that these days I usually only buy one box of Prilosec at a time, even though that means I often have to go to the store at odd times because I’ve run out of Prilosec at a time when I don’t need any other grocery items. My original plan of no longer shopping at any store that makes this mistake more than once was foiled by the fact that every store makes this mistake all the time. Don’t believe me? Grab three boxes of Prilosec and head to the register of any store and see what happens.

So there’s my rant for the day. I have allergies. I have acid reflux. And the biggest problem with either of those is not in having to live with them, but instead the hassle and stigma of trying to acquire and use the over-the-counter drugs that I need to keep them in check. Sarcastically, I can’t help but wonder if the continual persecution of those who legitimately require these legal drugs isn’t enough to push a few of them to turn to illegal drugs in order to cope psychologically.

Well, that’s off my chest. What ticks me off is that I go so far out of my way not to take any more drugs, or any stronger drugs, than necessary. With my back problems I could easily be on pain killers, but I choose not to, instead toughing it out with anti-inflammatories that don’t work all that well but do get me through the day. I have to wonder though: now that it’s become all but illegal to have allergies or heartburn, I wonder how long before they make it next to impossible to acquire anti-inflammatories as well? I guess I shouldn’t worry too much, as to the best of my knowledge none of them begin with the letter P, which means I’m safe for now.

Alright, now on to that happy and productive day…